Les Misérables
but it did not seem as though this spot were made for any one to walk
in, even in broad daylight.
Jean Valjean’s first care had been to get hold of his shoes and put
them on again, then to step under the shed with Cosette. A man who is
fleeing never thinks himself sufficiently hidden. The child, whose
thoughts were still on the Thénardier, shared his instinct for
withdrawing from sight as much as possible.
Cosette trembled and pressed close to him. They heard the tumultuous
noise of the patrol searching the blind alley and the streets; the
blows of their gun-stocks against the stones; Javert’s appeals to the
police spies whom he had posted, and his imprecations mingled with
words which could not be distinguished.
At the expiration of a quarter of an hour it seemed as though that
species of stormy roar were becoming more distant. Jean Valjean held
his breath.
He had laid his hand lightly on Cosette’s mouth.
However, the solitude in which he stood was so strangely calm, that
this frightful uproar, close and furious as it was, did not disturb him
by so much as the shadow of a misgiving. It seemed as though those
walls had been built of the deaf stones of which the Scriptures speak.
All at once, in the midst of this profound calm, a fresh sound arose; a
sound as celestial, divine, ineffable, ravishing, as the other had been
horrible. It was a hymn which issued from the gloom, a dazzling burst
of prayer and harmony in the obscure and alarming silence of the night;
women’s voices, but voices composed at one and the same time of the
pure accents of virgins and the innocent accents of children,—voices
which are not of the earth, and which resemble those that the newborn
infant still hears, and which the dying man hears already. This song
proceeded from the gloomy edifice which towered above the garden. At
the moment when the hubbub of demons retreated, one would have said
that a choir of angels was approaching through the gloom.
Cosette and Jean Valjean fell on their knees.
They knew not what it was, they knew not where they were; but both of
them, the man and the child, the penitent and the innocent, felt that
they must kneel.
These voices had this strange characteristic, that they did not prevent
the building from seeming to be deserted. It was a supernatural chant
in an uninhabited house.
While these voices were singing, Jean Valjean thought of nothing. He no
longer beheld the night; he beheld a blue sky. It seemed to him that he
felt those wings which we all have within us, unfolding.
The song died away. It may have lasted a long time. Jean Valjean could
not have told. Hours of ecstasy are never more than a moment.
All fell silent again. There was no longer anything in the street;
there was nothing in the garden. That which had menaced, that which had
reassured him,—all had vanished. The breeze swayed a few dry weeds on
the crest of the wall, and they gave out a faint, sweet, melancholy
sound.
CHAPTER VII—CONTINUATION OF THE ENIGMA
The night wind had risen, which indicated that it must be between one
and two o’clock in the morning. Poor Cosette said nothing. As she had
seated herself beside him and leaned her head against him, Jean Valjean
had fancied that she was asleep. He bent down and looked at her.
Cosette’s eyes were wide open, and her thoughtful air pained Jean
Valjean.
She was still trembling.
“Are you sleepy?” said Jean Valjean.
“I am very cold,” she replied.
A moment later she resumed:—
“Is she still there?”
“Who?” said Jean Valjean.
“Madame Thénardier.”
Jean Valjean had already forgotten the means which he had employed to
make Cosette keep silent.
“Ah!” said he, “she is gone. You need fear nothing further.”
The child sighed as though a load had been lifted from her breast.
The ground was damp, the shed open on all sides, the breeze grew more
keen every instant. The goodman took off his coat and wrapped it round
Cosette.
“Are you less cold now?” said he.
“Oh, yes, father.”
“Well, wait for me a moment. I will soon be back.”
He quitted the ruin and crept along the large building, seeking a
better shelter. He came across doors, but they were closed. There were
bars at all the windows of the ground floor.
Just after he had turned the inner angle of the edifice, he observed
that he was coming to some arched windows, where he perceived a light.
He stood on tiptoe and peeped through one of these windows. They all
opened on a tolerably vast hall, paved with large flagstones, cut up by
arcades and pillars, where only a tiny light and great shadows were
visible. The light came from a taper which was burning in one corner.
The apartment was deserted, and nothing was stirring in it.
Nevertheless, by dint of gazing intently he thought he perceived on the
ground something which appeared to be covered with a winding-sheet, and
which resembled a human form. This form was lying face downward, flat
on the pavement, with the arms extended in the form of a cross, in the
immobility of death. One would have said, judging from a sort of
serpent which undulated over the floor, that this sinister form had a
rope round its neck.
The whole chamber was bathed in that mist of places which are sparely
illuminated, which adds to horror.
Jean Valjean often said afterwards, that, although many funereal
spectres had crossed his path in life, he had never beheld anything
more blood-curdling and terrible than that enigmatical form
accomplishing some inexplicable mystery in that gloomy place, and
beheld thus at night. It was alarming to suppose that that thing was
perhaps dead; and still more alarming to think that it was perhaps
alive.
He had the courage to plaster his face to the glass, and to watch
whether the thing would move. In spite of his remaining thus what
seemed to him a very long time, the outstretched form made no movement.
All at once he felt himself overpowered by an inexpressible terror, and
he fled. He began to run towards the shed, not daring to look behind
him. It seemed to him, that if he turned his head, he should see that
form following him with great strides and waving its arms.
He reached the ruin all out of breath. His knees were giving way
beneath him; the perspiration was pouring from him.
Where was he? Who could ever have imagined anything like that sort of
sepulchre in the midst of Paris! What was this strange house? An
edifice full of nocturnal mystery, calling to souls through the
darkness with the voice of angels, and when they came, offering them
abruptly that terrible vision; promising to open the radiant portals of
heaven, and then opening the horrible gates of the tomb! And it
actually was an edifice, a house, which bore a number on the street! It
was not a dream! He had to touch the stones to convince himself that
such was the fact.
Cold, anxiety, uneasiness, the emotions of the night, had given him a
genuine fever, and all these ideas were clashing together in his brain.
He stepped up to Cosette. She was asleep.
CHAPTER VIII—THE ENIGMA BECOMES DOUBLY MYSTERIOUS
The child had laid her head on a stone and fallen asleep.
He sat down beside her and began to think. Little by little, as he
gazed at her, he grew calm and regained possession of his freedom of
mind.
He clearly perceived this truth, the foundation of his life henceforth,
that so long as she was there, so long as he had her near him, he
should need nothing except for her, he should fear nothing except for
her. He was not even conscious that he was very cold, since he had
taken off his coat to cover her.
Nevertheless, athwart this reverie into which he had fallen he had
heard for some time a peculiar noise. It was like the tinkling of a
bell. This sound proceeded from the garden. It could be heard
distinctly though faintly. It resembled the faint, vague music produced
by the bells of cattle at night in the pastures.
This noise made Valjean turn round.
He looked and saw that there was some one in the garden.
A being resembling a man was walking amid the bell-glasses of the melon
beds, rising, stooping, halting, with regular movements, as though he
were dragging or spreading out something on the ground. This person
appeared to limp.
Jean Valjean shuddered with the continual tremor of the unhappy. For
them everything is hostile and suspicious. They distrust the day
because it enables people to see them, and the night because it aids in
surprising them. A little while before he had shivered because the
garden was deserted, and now he shivered because there was some one
there.
He fell back from chimerical terrors to real terrors. He said to
himself that Javert and the spies had, perhaps, not taken their
departure; that they had, no doubt, left people on the watch in the
street; that if this man should discover him in the garden, he would
cry out for help against thieves and deliver him up. He took the
sleeping Cosette gently in his arms and carried her behind a heap of
old furniture, which was out of use, in the most remote corner of the
shed. Cosette did not stir.
From that point he scrutinized the appearance of the being in the melon
patch. The strange thing about it was, that the sound of the bell
followed each of this man’s movements. When the man approached, the
sound approached; when the man retreated, the sound retreated; if he
made any hasty gesture, a tremolo accompanied the gesture; when he
halted, the sound ceased. It appeared evident that the bell was
attached to that man; but what could that signify? Who was this man who
had a bell suspended about him like a ram or an ox?
As he put these questions to himself, he touched Cosette’s hands. They
were icy cold.
“Ah! good God!” he cried.
He spoke to her in a low voice:—
“Cosette!”
She did not open her eyes.
He shook her vigorously.
She did not wake.
“Is she dead?” he said to himself, and sprang to his feet, quivering
from head to foot.
The most frightful thoughts rushed pell-mell through his mind. There
are moments when hideous surmises assail us like a cohort of furies,
and violently force the partitions of our brains. When those we love
are in question, our prudence invents every sort of madness. He
remembered that sleep in the open air on a cold night may be fatal.
Cosette was pale, and had fallen at full length on the ground at his
feet, without a movement.
He listened to her breathing: she still breathed, but with a
respiration which seemed to him weak and on the point of extinction.
How was he to warm her back to life? How was he to rouse her? All that
was not connected with this vanished from his thoughts. He rushed
wildly from the ruin.
It was absolutely necessary that Cosette should be in bed and beside a
fire in less than a quarter of an hour.
CHAPTER IX—THE MAN WITH THE BELL
He walked straight up to the man whom he saw in the garden. He had
taken in his hand the roll of silver which was in the pocket of his
waistcoat.
The man’s head was bent down, and he did not see him approaching. In a
few strides Jean Valjean stood beside him.
Jean Valjean accosted him with the cry:—
“One hundred francs!”
The man gave a start and raised his eyes.
“You can earn a hundred francs,” went on Jean Valjean, “if you will
grant me shelter for this night.”
The moon shone full upon Jean Valjean’s terrified countenance.
“What! so it is you, Father Madeleine!” said the man.
That name, thus pronounced, at that obscure hour, in that unknown spot,
by that strange man, made Jean Valjean start back.
He had expected anything but that. The person who thus addressed him
was a bent and lame old man, dressed almost like a peasant, who wore on